


Fast Forward To The End

by DeceitfulHonesty



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post 5x05, post Rewind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 23:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13177113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeceitfulHonesty/pseuds/DeceitfulHonesty
Summary: Hunter just watched his best friend get locked in a box for the next 70 years AND discovered that his found family of the last three years has been blasted into some apocalyptic hell-future.He needed to make a phone call.





	Fast Forward To The End

The glass on the cryo chamber iced over and Hunter let the forced smile fall from his face.  He shot a final instruction/word of warning to the creepy bald guy to keep Fitz safe and stalked out of the bunker. 

Robin and her mother glanced up at him as he strode through the room to the elevator. 

“I’ll be back in a bit. I just need to…take care of something,” he told them gruffly. 

The elevator ascended and deposited Hunter back in the known world. It seemed strange that so little had changed, but everything was different now. He stepped into the sunlight out of the shadow of the lighthouse and there was nothing amiss. The birds still chirped. The clouds still drifted lazily across the blue sky. No one else was aware that, for the hundredth time, his life was turned upside down.

Most of the earth-shattering changes in his life came with a bit more drama. He had seen his friends turned to stone by mysterious weapons, a tiny, new recruit obliterate a forest with her mind, and a man with a murderous shadow try to stage a political coup. All came with explosions, gunfire, destruction. 

There was no fanfare around the death of Hunter’s best friend. 

Sure, he wasn’t technically dead, but he going to be frozen in a box for the next 70 years. Even if Hunter did live well into his 100s (which was highly unlikely in his line of work), there was still an extinction-level event that he would have to survive. 

So in his mind, Fitz and the rest of his friends at SHIELD were truly dead. 

No more scanning the news to see if Coulson or Mack were in the background of a crowd, no more pouring over all the negative PR Daisy was garnering as 'Quake.'

No more semi-coded messages in football fanzines that were mostly just to talk shit on each others’ teams. 

Hunter forcefully wiped a tear from his eye. He didn’t cry—couldn’t cry. No matter how much Bobbi tried to drill into him that expressing his emotions was 'healthy' and 'natural' and 'for god’s sake, only one of us can be an emotional robot,' Hunter couldn’t let himself. A mercenary who cried was either weak, untrustworthy, or new and none were good traits to be known for if he wanted to pay his bills. 

Hunter flipped out his latest burner phone and tapped out a message. 

It was to Bobbi.

He knew it was well early for their next check in; they did their own thing most of the time, but would still check back in for a night or two in each other’s arms when they were ready or if they needed it. 

Hunter could admit he needed it tonight. 

He proofread the message one more time before he hit send (these stupid, old flip phones didn’t have autocorrect).

< _Did you hear about the corgi convention in downtown Phily near Bill’s Tavern? Sounds up your alley >_

Once he was certain the message sent, Hunter closed the phone, jammed it into his pockets, and headed towards the road. He didn’t expect a response. The Zephyr was still parked nearby, just cloaked, but he figured he should aim for low-key still.  

It took him a day and a half to hitchhike his way to Boston, but it was still well within Bobbi and his agreed upon timeframe. They typically gave each other a four day window to get from wherever they were to their meeting spot. If the other didn’t show up by then, it was their way of saying they needed more time away. 

Neither of them had ever missed the window, though. 

Hunter strolled into Bills’ Tavern, ordered a drink, and then sat down at a corner booth. He tried his damnedest to avoid thinking about Fitz or the team and what could happen to them in their frozen state and in the post-apocalyptic future, but Liverpool was playing and it dredged up the thoughts anyway. He downed his drink and ordered another. 

At 9:04 pm exactly, he finished off his final drink and headed towards the toilets. He walked straight passed the door to the toilet, making sure no one was following him, and slipped out the door to the back alley and the dumpster. 

The alley was mostly deserted. There were a few employees hanging by the dumpster on a smoke break.

“Mind if I bum a smoke?” he asked. One of the employees, who barely looked old enough to buy his own cigarettes, slipped one out of a pack and handed it over with a lighter. 

Hunter then proceeded to make small talk with all of them until they snuffed out their cigarettes and headed back inside (Hunter’s brand of 'small talk' was a blend of highly inappropriate jokes and totally falsified overshares that made the employees hide their cringes until they could use the excuse that their break was over to leave).

Again, like too many times this past year, Hunter was left alone.

He didn’t normally smoke, but he held on to the lit cigarette just for something to do. The acrid taste in his mouth and the burn of the smoke filling his lungs kept him present, but the shapes that swirled in his exhaled smoke drew him back into his memories.

He waited half an hour behind the bar, alone, before giving up and heading to find a motel to crash in. 

He repeated the ritual the next night. Bar, drink, 9:04—head to the alley, scare away the locals, and wait. 

Another no-show. 

He was starting to get concerned. Not that something had happened, (please, Bobbi could take care of herself better than he could), but that she wasn’t going to come. 

He had used their emergency code and everything. Sure, it had only been about a month so they’d last met up, but they always showed up for the important things. 

The last time they’d used the emergency code, Bobbi wasn’t sleeping because of flashbacks to her torture. They had been apart longer that time, but Hunter still dropped the job he was on and got himself to Reno in three days. 

Hunter flicked another pilfered cigarette into the alley and marched back to the motel. She still had one more night to show. 

At 9:04 the next night, he was back in the alley. If she wasn’t here by now, she wasn’t coming. Still, he wandering into the small cluster of regulars, who made a beeline for the door when they saw him approach, and opted to give her ten minutes.

Ten minutes in which he got progressively more morose. 

Nine minutes and thirty-four seconds into his ten minutes, a car screeched into the alley, blocking one of the exits. It was an expensive, shiny black model that set Hunter on edge and he slowly slid his hand towards the gun in his waistband.

The driver of the car killed the ignition and the door popped open. 

It was Bobbi. 

Even with her hair dyed a deep brown again, the large prescription glasses perched on her nose, and the low light of the streetlamp that illuminated the alley, he would recognize her in a heartbeat. 

Hunter’s shoulders relaxed and he let out a breath. All frustration with her faded away to be replaced with relief and a flood of emotions he had been trying to squelch for four days. 

“I was worried you wouldn’t still be here. I’m so sorry, I was in Oregon when I got your message and it took forev—“

He didn’t care about the explanation. He crossed the distance between them in three long steps and threw his arms around her waist. He buried his face in the crook of her shoulder and just breathed her in. She was here. He wasn’t alone anymore. 

Bobbi froze. Hunter didn’t break down like this for much. Even in the most dire situations, he would laugh it off with a snide joke in public and then be broody and quiet once it was just him and Bob. 

She knew something was very wrong.

How could he even begin to tell her why he called? Because, maybe, the world would end tomorrow. Because Fitz might turn to ice in that chamber and never wake up to save the day. Because the family they built over two years with a handful of misfits was flung into some apocalyptic future and may never return. Because there was a little girl and her mother who they needed to protect and the girl was the only reason he knew any of this. 

Bobbi wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and his shoulder to squeeze him tightly. Hunter hugged her tighter as he bit back broken sobs. They weren’t in a private enough place for him to let himself go, but he was finding it hard to hold it in. 

Thankfully, Bobbi wasn’t the type to whisper sweet nothings in his ear by way of comfort. She just held him firmly, silently, until he was ready to talk. Hunter was sure her spy-brain was racing through a million possibilities right now. He would tell her everything in due time. For now, he just needed her: a physical person, alive, unfrozen, in the present day, to ground him and tell him that, for one night, it would be okay. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This little ditty popped into my head with all the speculation about what Hunter going to be going through now that Fitz is gone and I had to try my hand at it. It was a bit of a challenge/fun experience for me cuz I've never written Hunter's POV or anything with him not being the comic relief, so I hope I did alright. And it's been awhile since I strayed into angst, so that's always fun.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed!


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